Switzerland starts testing drones for mail delivery

The Swiss Post in collaboration with Swiss WorldCargo and the drone maker Matternet are to test the use of drones as a method of postal delivery. The use of drones isn’t expected for another five years, the company said in a statement.

“Until the time of their realistic commercial use in around five years, there are various requirements which need to be clarified. This includes the regulatory framework. In addition, there are technical restrictions with the drones of today, such as limited battery life,” the company said in a statement.

One area drones could be especially useful for Swiss Post is for the express delivery of goods in special situations, the company said.

The drones have four propellers each, extending from its main body, with a yellow box attached to the centre for carrying goods.

They are connected via cloud computing that aggregates the weather, terrain and airspace data, and can carry a load of up to 1kg over a distance of more than 10kms with a single battery charge.

Mail and package delivery will likely be one of the most common use cases for drones in the future. The Swiss Post is not the first to begin experimenting with drones for delivery. Last year, the UPS began doing similar research and several tech giants including Amazon and Google are investing in drone technology for their own delivery purposes.